The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan today celebrated the National Day of Community Health Workers while this ministry has trained more than 29,000 Community Health Workers (CHWs) during the recent years.
The ceremony was attended by a large number of CHWs, officials of MoPH and representatives from some national and international agencies, under Slogan of “Let’s thank from Community Health Workers for Provision of Volunteer Primary Health Care Services to the Community”
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Najia Tariq, Deputy Minister for healthcare provision of MoPH said, community bases health care is foundation for Basic Package of Health Service (BPHS) of the MoPH and CHWs have significant role in delivery of BPHS.
Basic Package of Health service (BPHS) is starting from the Health post and each Health post have two CHW, one male and one Female that they are provide Health service in their coverage areas, she added.
Dr. Tariq, further said, CHWs are Volunteers Health providers in every village of the country and MoPH has trained more 29,000 Community Health Workers in 34 provinces of Afghanistan and for their supervision and on job training, MoPH have employed more than 1200 Community Health Supervisors.
Health education, First aid, Treatment of commune diseases, Strengthening of Referral system, Fallowing of DOT System, Providing of Family Health Service in community and Providing Vaccine in National Immunization day are the main jobs of CHW.
CHWs including male and female are introduced by Community and MoPH provides training and standard first aid medicine for them in order to serve their people day and night in the villages.
CHWs have effective role and obtained the significant achievements in providing of basic health services. For instance, during last year, they provided family planning services for more than 1.7 million user, referred 137,930 normal delivery cases and 28,936 complicated delivery cases to the health facilities and provided many others important basic health services as well.